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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29471739">the numbered hour</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rynleaf/pseuds/rynleaf'>rynleaf</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RYC | Reverse Yi City - kevinkevinson, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Madam Yu's A+ Parenting, Reincarnation, bed sharing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:34:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,150</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29471739</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rynleaf/pseuds/rynleaf</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Yanli laughed once, a little helpless, pulling at the hem of her ruined sweater. “Do you have some terrible wine on hand?” </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Yanli's blind date goes wrong. She asks for help.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jiāng Yànlí/Wēn Qíng</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>149</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the numbered hour</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>set in <a href="https://twitter.com/kevinkevinsonnn"> kevinkevinson's</a> reincarnation AU. they let me play with yanli and wen qing to help me through my rut, bc they're the actual best &lt;3</p>
<p>thank you Mari for the beta, Skadi for the once-over and everyone else the handholding I needed more of than this fic really warrants. y'all are good beans.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The rain comes and goes overnight. Wen Qing wakes up to it beating against the open window at half past four in the morning and crawls out of bed to shut it, pauses by the sagging arm of the fold-out sofa to watch the shape of the woman curled under the blanket, shoulders rising and falling with breath.</p>
<p>She considers going back to sleep. She listens to the rain hammer on the metal overhang above the front door, the soft noise of a warm body in the room, the ticking of the clock above the kitchen counter. Her space on the left side of the mattress looks still warm. Inviting.</p>
<p>Wen Qing sighs, pulls the folding door that separates the room from the kitchen softly shut, and puts water on to boil.</p>
<p>By the time proper morning comes, the humidity is thick enough to sit in Wen Qing’s lungs as she pushes onto the early bus. The crush of people crowding on is like a many-limbed, sweaty animal, shuddering uphill and down past the housing district and food shops and little side streets where the haphazard knick-knack market pops up every weekend. It’s early--seven in the morning and rush hour for salaried men and schoolchildren and doctors who work the midday shift on a Friday.</p>
<p>Wen Qing pushes her way off the bus. She pats her pocket for her phone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Jiang Yanli                 </strong>07:08</p>
<p>&gt; Good morning! ☼<br/>
&gt; Thank you for letting me stay over last night, I really appreciate it.<br/>
&gt; I’ll be out of your hair by the time you finish, have a good day at work!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wen Qing pauses on the sidewalk, the inhale-exhale rhythm of the morning crowd parting smoothly around her. The first bus leaves. A student trips and drops an oily bag of youtiao just by the intersection, her cry of outrage half-lost in the noise of traffic and the crows overhead.</p>
<p>Wen Qing stares at the time on her phone: quarter past seven. Her shift starts in fifteen minutes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>07:16                        <strong>Me</strong></p>
<p>there is rice in the fridge &lt;<br/>
u don’t have 2 rush &lt;</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s no reply by the time she makes it to the hospital. She checks her messages in the residents’ changing room one last time before outpatient clinic hour starts and finds nothing more than a text from Wei Wuxian--a link to a series of douyins, something to do with a cat based on the thumbnails--which she closes immediately before pocketing her phone.</p>
<p>“Ready?” her resident asks. Wen Qing puts her glasses on and flips open the first file on her desk.</p>
<p>“Let’s get to it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I can sleep on the futon,” Wen Qing had said, “it’s fine.”</p>
<p>Yanli, looking out of sorts in her tidy knee-length skirt and wine-stained cream sweater, had made a vague noise of assent. Her eyes were a little puffy. A single strand of hair had escaped her ponytail and curled around her neck, a slash of black-brown against pale skin.</p>
<p>“I’m really sorry about the inconvenience,” Yanli said, dabbing at her smudged eyeliner with a paper napkin.</p>
<p>Wen Qing shook her head and pushed a glass of water a little closer. The bottom left a trail of condensation on the coffee table, little pebbled water droplets on plastic.</p>
<p>“Why don’t I get you a change of clothes, and then we can watch a movie?”</p>
<p>Yanli laughed once, a little helpless, pulling at the hem of her ruined sweater. “Do you have some terrible wine on hand?”</p>
<p>Wen Qing gave her a shirt to wear and a towel to use, then sat on the sofa listening to the shower turn on. She stretched to catch the scent of her own body wash when Yanli came out with her hair wrapped into a bun on top of her head, Wen Qing’s t-shirt water-stained on her back.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to sleep on the futon,” Yanli said. “I’m okay with it, really, or…”</p>
<p>Yanli gave the sofa that served as Wen Qing’s bed a quick once-over. Wen Qing swallowed like an idiot and said, “It’s big enough for two when it’s pulled out.”</p>
<p>They’d shared a bottle of wine between them, the movie playing at a low enough volume that Wen Qing almost fell asleep to the white noise of it: the murmur of people, slow music, the breathing of another person in her shoebox apartment.</p>
<p>"My mother will be pissed," Yanli said softly. She sat with her knees drawn up and Wen Qing's good wine glass balanced on top of them, staring at the TV. Wen Qing pulled herself upright.</p>
<p>"She shouldn't have set you up with an asshole from a different city. Or she should have come and picked you up. Or any number of things."</p>
<p>“There is a gala,” said Yanli. “I didn’t call.”</p>
<p>“So you called me instead.”</p>
<p>A hum, a slow sip. Yanli curled herself up even tighter.</p>
<p>“You stay as long as you like,” Wen Qing added softly. Yanli, eyes turned to the flickering screen, didn’t appear to hear.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Jiang Yanli                 </strong>13:02</p>
<p>&gt; There is a train I can take, but it doesn’t leave until after five.<br/>
&gt; I might as well make some food for you while I’m here, you don’t have any allergies right?</p>
<p>13:03                        <strong>Me</strong></p>
<p>no &lt;<br/>
u don’t have to make food for me &lt;</p>
<p><strong>Jiang Yanli                 </strong>13:04</p>
<p>&gt; Oh no, it’s not a problem!<br/>
&gt; I don’t have anything better to do anyway that isn’t obsessively checking the sports gossip groups<br/>
&gt; Besides, the chicken in your fridge is going off today. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wen Qing inhales the last of her noodles, puts down her chopsticks and presses call. The canteen is noisy, but she only has five minutes before she has to be at the ER.</p>
<p>This feels important. It nags her in the back of her mind, the memory of Yanli’s expression when she checked her phone the night before and said, dejected, <em>somebody posted a picture on weibo.</em></p>
<p><em>“Yes?” </em>Yanli answers after the second ring.</p>
<p>“Do you want to stay for another night?” asks Wen Qing. “I can pick up something on the way home. You don’t need to cook for me.”</p>
<p>There is a pause on the other end. Xiao-Ying from cardiology waves at Wen Qing from across the room, then gestures at the clock.</p>
<p><em>“I don’t want to be a bother,” </em>Yanli says, hesitant. Wen Qing clutches the phone between her left ear and her shoulder, picks up her tray and takes it to the window by the kitchen. <em>“A-Cheng could pick me up tomorrow,”</em> Yanli adds.</p>
<p>Wen Qing puts her tray down. “Okay. You like sushi?”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Yes. Wen Qing, I…”</em>
</p>
<p>“I gotta go. Text you when I’m on my way back.”</p>
<p>She hangs up. Xiao-Ying falls into step with her and passes her a clipboard and a pen.</p>
<p>“Boyfriend?” she asks. Wen Qing waves her hand in dismissal, pulls up weibo on her phone and types in ‘Jiang Yanli’.</p>
<p>
  <strong>
    <em>Junior Champion Lotus Princess in Shouting Match with Unknown Man.</em>
  </strong>
</p>
<p>The picture is a blurry image of Yanli, hands held up with a placating smile. On the front of her sweater, the red wine stain looks stark and violent.</p>
<p><em>He was an ass,</em> Yanli had said last night when Wen Qing opened her apartment door to let her in. <em>He was supposed to be my ride back home. Sorry. </em></p>
<p>Wen Qing gets out of the hospital at six. She picks up sushi from the Japanese place in the mall, crams herself onto the bus and fights a group of teenage boys for a seat, curling herself around her bag and the takeaway boxes as she rests her forehead against the seat in front of her, a moment of shut-eye before her stop comes.</p>
<p>Yanli opens the door red-cheeked and sweaty. The apartment smells like spices.</p>
<p>“I told you not to cook,” Wen Qing says. Yanli takes her bag and the takeaway boxes and shuffles some dishes around to make space for them on the counter.</p>
<p>“I didn’t want the chicken to go to waste. It’s just congee.”</p>
<p>Wen Qing toes her shoes off and circles the sofa, folded up with the bedding stashed to the side. Yanli turns off the gas under the wok and lifts the rice cooker’s lid, the scent of ginger and vegetable stock billowing out with the steam.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Yanli says. She’s wearing another one of Wen Qing’s shirts. Faded butterfly print, stretched neckline. It sits noticeably tighter on Yanli than on her.</p>
<p>Wen Qing recalls Jiang Yanli dressed in an olympics jacket and her brother’s overcoat, sitting on a stretcher in a different city, a different life.</p>
<p>That’s the first thing she had ever said to Wen Qing. <em>Sorry, doctor.</em></p>
<p>A year ago now, since Yanli’s visit to the ER, the sprained shoulder. They have been sort of-friends since.</p>
<p>Wen Qing finds herself spacing out in the minuscule bathroom, staring at Yanli’s reflection in the mirror with her hands stretching under running water: there is a blurring line here, a difference between friends who text a few times a week and friends who sleep in the same bed after a disaster date and a bottle of wine. Jiang Yanli smells like Wen Qing’s body wash and laundry detergent. Jiang Yanli leans against the folding kitchen door, frowning at her phone with a hand tangled in her fringe.</p>
<p>“It’s…,” she says, gesturing at the phone, “I gotta…”</p>
<p>Wen Qing waves her hand. She fishes for a towel and tries not to listen to Yanli’s voice go up half an octave, honey sweet and already apologetic.</p>
<p>“Hi, mom. Yes. Yes, I--uh huh. I know.”</p>
<p>Wen Qing opens the cabinet under the TV and pulls out another bottle of wine. Yanli stands with her back to the room, curled inward like a hard-shelled animal.</p>
<p>“No, I understand, of course… No, I’ll speak to her. It’s not a problem. It got really--”</p>
<p>A lengthy pause. Wen Qing puts a hand on Yanli’s shoulder when she passes the kitchen door on her way to open the window and let in some air now that it’s cool enough. It smells like <em>outside:</em> exhaust smoke, damp asphalt, jasmine flowers from the neighbour’s balcony.</p>
<p>“It got blown out of--no, I know. I know. I’m sorry.” A shaky inhale. Yanli’s red knuckled hand, reaching for a spoon to dip into the rice cooker, absent-minded. “Okay. I’ll call you later. Bye, mom.”</p>
<p>The clock ticks steadily on. Yanli licks the spoon and hums, takes the bottle of soy sauce on the counter and drips some on the spoon, stirs it in.</p>
<p>“This will keep for a while,” she says. Her voice is a little hoarse. “You should try and eat a little better, I checked and your freezer is empty except for…”</p>
<p>“Hey.” Wen Qing puts a hand on Yanli’s shoulder and turns her around. Yanli’s lower lip wobbles before she pulls her face into a smile. It’s no less dimpled for its falseness.</p>
<p>Wen Qing puts her hand on Yanli’s cheek and swipes her mouth with her thumb.</p>
<p>“Stop that. Who are you playing for?” she asks softly.</p>
<p>Yanli kisses her. Wen Qing freezes.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Yanli says, “that was very stupid of me. Shit. I’ll--”</p>
<p>Wen Qing makes a noise--she herself doesn’t know what it is except that it’s urgent, important, <em>imperative</em> to make Yanli understand that she--that Wen Qing--</p>
<p>“I know what this looks like, I promise I’m not--wow, what a shitty thing to do. Wow. It’s not--”</p>
<p>“This is not a rebound thing, right?” Wen Qing asks hoarsely. “Do you even like men?”</p>
<p>Yanli swallows, nods. Shakes her head. Nods again.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Wen Qing says and kisses her.</p>
<p>The rice cooker clicks loudly from ‘cook’ to ‘warm’. Yanli’s hands, damp from steam and smelling sharply like ginger and hand cream, snake around Wen Qing’s neck.</p>
<p>“Stay the weekend,” Wen Qing says. The apartment is hot with steam and the thick scent of incoming rain. “I’m off on Sunday. We could go out for a movie.”</p>
<p>Yanli leans against her, eyes closed. Her lashes are a little damp.</p>
<p>“Okay. Yeah.”</p>
<p>That night the rain comes hand in hand with a thunderstorm. Yanli, open-mouthed and beautiful, is outlined sharply by lightning: a flashing image, long hair, soft belly, strong thighs.</p>
<p>The lights went out minutes ago. Wen Qing seeks Yanli’s warmth in the sudden shock of darkness, a damp kiss to the corner of Yanli’s mouth, the hinge of her jaw, her right shoulder, muscles under skin.</p>
<p>“The window is open,” Yanli whispers breathlessly.</p>
<p>“I’ll close it in a minute,” Wen Qing says, threading her fingers into the soft flyaway hair on the nape of Yanli’s neck.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>06:13                        <strong>Me</strong></p>
<p>txt me when you get home &lt;<br/>
call if i need to yell at ur mother &lt;</p>
<p><strong>Jiang Yanli                 </strong>06:13</p>
<p>&gt; Stop that!<br/>
&gt; Have a good day at work, I’ll call you in a few hours<br/>
&gt; ♡⊂ʕ•ᴥ•⊂ʔ</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This fic has been converted for free using <a href="https://aoyeet.space">AOYeet!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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